“Oh no, you’re not going into the saloon dressed like that. Your papa would come back from the dead and haunt me.”
She frowned at him. “Stop. You’re not talking me out of this. I need your help, and I have very little time.”
“I don’t care. You’re not going dressed like that. If you were my wife, I wouldn’t even let you wear that dress around the house.”
“Well, I’m not your wife, so there’s no need to worry.”
Oh God, he really should tell her the truth, but he wasn’t ready to answer her questions. There was no way to make Ruby understand his choices without telling her everything.
“I need you to play a few hands of cards with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m the card dealer tonight, and if I don’t know what I’m doing, I won’t get the job.”
“Good. Then you’ll come to your senses and see I was right. You’re taking a senseless chance.”
She took a deep breath. “Deke. Play cards with me. If you don’t, I might get shot.”
He shook his head and motioned her inside his room. Glancing up at the ceiling, he said, “Sir, I’m sorry, I tried to talk her out of dressing this way. She’s definitely your daughter because she’s so damn stubborn.” He knew he couldn’t stop her, but he was hoping maybe guilt would work. But she was stubborn as they come and he didn’t even faze her.
Ruby walked by and punched him in the gut. “Stop it. Let me deal the cards to you.”
Sitting down on the bed, she shuffled the deck and dealt him a hand. Even her sitting on the bed was enough to send his mind spinning with what they could do on that mattress. How she would look naked against the sheets.
Focus!
“Always make certain the cards are turned down, so the other players can’t read the card their neighbor received,” he said, watching her sitting on the edge of his bed, thinking that dress just begged him to remove it, to peel it slowly from her shoulders, down past her waist to her pantaloons. He’d like nothing more than to stare at all that creamy white flesh.
“Okay.”
“Do you know the rules of poker?” he asked, focusing his eyes on her forehead and not her chest. Man, these men were going to lose tonight, and the house was going to love her. They wouldn’t care she was stealing their pay bit by bit. They would be lost in her beautiful blue eyes and those breasts. The dress was a definite distraction to any man sitting at her table.
“Yes, at least the way my sisters and I used to play.”
“Oh God, you’re going to get killed.”
“You don’t know that. Annabelle could deal a mean hand of five card draw.”
He glanced at her. “I’m sure Annabelle is quite the card shark.”
“She is. You look at her all quiet and innocent, and she will strip you of your money.”
Just like Ruby was going to steal these crooks blind when they lost themselves in her beauty. God, he had to be there to protect her. “What about twenty-one? Do you know the rules of that game?”
“Seems pretty simple.”
“But you’re the dealer. You have to know how to run the table. You have to stand on seventeen.”
“Okay, I can do that. What else do I need to know?” she asked, looking at him all innocent eyed and beautiful, and they, neither one, would live through the night. He was certain he’d die in some kind of fight protecting her.
“Watch for cheats. Sometimes men have been known to hide cards they need. So watch their hands carefully,” he warned, trying to focus on what she needed to know.
She shuffled and dealt another hand of five card stud.
“No, don’t do that. You can’t look at your cards until everyone has received their hand,” he told her.
“Oh.”
“Ruby, I feel really nervous about this.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do okay. If I can play a saloon girl, I can do a card dealer.”
“Why didn’t you do the saloon girl part again?” he asked, wondering why she’d put herself in so much danger.
“Because the saloon girls also work upstairs, if you understand what I’m saying.”
He smiled. “So you draw the line at being a whore.”
“Absolutely. I could play the fancy woman for the right man, but he wouldn’t remember the night.”
Deke frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it would be lights out for him, as soon as he walked in the door and my weapon connected with the back of his head.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I don’t like this. There are other ways we can get the information we need. You don’t have to work in the saloon.”
“Nope, this is how we’re doing it.”
When it came to Ruby, his negotiation skills had dried up and blow away in the Texas sand. Because he seemed to lose every round. “What time do you have to be there?”
“In about ten minutes.”
“Do you have a gun on you?”
“Always.”
He walked over and stood within inches of her. At the sight of her, desire was pulsing through his blood, rushing at him like a runaway train. He stared at her lips, wanting to taste them again, wanting to put his mouth over hers and drink from her body. But knew he’d be a dead man if he tried.
The smell of roses teased his nose, and he knew her table would be crowded. He couldn’t resist letting his finger trail down her chest to her exposed cleavage. “No man should be viewing these. They’re exquisite.”
She grabbed his hand. “Including you. You’re a married man.”
Her skin felt silky smooth. He was envious of the men who would be at her card table tonight, feasting their eyes on the tops of her breasts.
She opened her reticule and pulled out her pot of lipstick. After twisting the lid open, she dipped her finger in and smeared the red paint across her lips. Then she dropped the pot into her bag. He’d watched her perform this little ritual more than once, and each time he wanted to kiss her until the red was gone.
“I’ve got to go,” she said softly.
“And I won’t be far behind you,” he said. “There’s no way you’re going over there alone, looking like this.”
“Just let me do my job.” She walked out the door, leaving him behind.
The scent of roses lingered in the room. He breathed deeply, his body needing release.
Sooner or later he needed to tell Ruby. Yes, he considered himself married. He had a wife. A wife he’d never given his heart to, but Laura was dead, and he was to blame for her death. Ruby needed to know the truth.
Chapter Six
While Ruby walked up to the table, she watched as the men checked out first her displayed chest and then her eyes. If she sneezed, she could be exposing herself to the six randy cowboys who sat staring at her, waiting for her to deal the cards.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said, shuffling the card deck, nerves skittering down her spine like a snake slithering across the ground. “How is everyone tonight? Anyone need a drink from the bar?”
Breathing in deep calming breaths, she squelched her nerves. She’d played cards as a kid, but never as a dealer in a local gambling establishment. While she and Meg had been in several saloons, Ruby had all but ignored the tables, concentrating on locating her outlaws. So tonight was do or die by the hand of her employer.
“Just deal the cards,” an old man sitting on the end said. “And make them good.”
“What’s your name, sir?” she asked him politely.
“Jack,” he murmured.
“Would you like to cut the cards?” she said with a smile and leaned over toward him, giving him a good view of her cleavage. Yeah, if she had to, she could play a man’s game with a woman’s wiles. She didn’t like it, but sometimes a woman had no choice, and men were easy to fool with a tease and a sultry glance.
She needed this job because if not tonight, then soon James Rivera would come to the saloon, and she’d be ready to haul him back to justice.
The old man’s forehead drew together, and his lips pursed into a frown. “I’m not going to tip you.”
“Honey, I don’t expect you to. The house is paying my wages.” Glancing at the money on the table, she checked with her players. “Everyone has anted?”
The man on the end threw his money in the pot. She would have to watch that one. No one played for free.
“Good luck, gentleman,” she said with a purr.
The man cut the deck in half, and she put the cards back together and began to deal.
She handed out the first two cards one down and one face up. The man in the middle started the betting. When all bets were in, she dealt a third card up, and the same cowboy upped the betting by fifty cents.
When all five cards were dealt, the betting continued until the man who’d been rude, Jack, won the hand with three two’s. He raked in the pile, and she smiled at him.
Collecting the cards, she shuffled the deck once again, her heartbeat slowed as she realized she hadn’t been yanked out of the chair yet. As she relaxed, she felt herself smile. She’d fooled them into believing she was a card dealer.
“Ante up?” she asked, checking to make sure all the players had bet. Then she dealt the hand.
Soon, she felt comfortable enough that while she dealt the cards, she could also check out the patrons. Some men just came in to drink and smoke, while others played the different table games available. Other men were perusing the women Mrs. Hutchins had available.
Ruby couldn’t help but be curious about what would make a woman decide to become a whore? Did they choose this lifestyle or had life given them no choice? She thought back to right after her papa had passed away and shuddered thinking that if Meg hadn’t been so determined, this could have been their lifestyle.
“Miss Callahan, deal the last card,” one of the men said.
“Sorry, gentlemen. I was trying to get the girl’s attention to bring over a bottle of whisky for anyone who might need a drink,” she said softly as she dealt the cards.
She’d also been searching the saloon, wondering if Rivera might already be among the patrons. Maybe he was here, and she didn’t recognize him.
“Last card, gentlemen,” she said and placed the final card on the table for that hand.
Soon, she had the rhythm down, and the men seemed to accept and even flirted with her. When she could, she gazed around the room and tried to find Rivera, only this time she saw Deke. Sitting alone at a bar, he nursed a drink and watched her, his brown eyes dark, his face unreadable.
She smiled at him, and he nodded his head, though he didn’t return her smile. In fact, he touched his hand to his gun, and she knew what he was saying. He was there looking after her. She didn’t need his protection, but maybe when he wasn’t scowling at her, he’d spot Rivera.
After all these years, she’d never considered he could be married. For some reason the thought had just never crossed her mind. While she hadn’t pined for the man, she’d often wondered about him. Mainly, if he was still kicking or if a bullet had found Deke and the grass now waved over him.
Mentally shaking the worrisome thought away, she glanced at the men around her table. Could they know anything about the location of Rivera?
“Gentlemen, I just arrived on the stage. Tell me what you like about Hide Town?”
“The law,” one man said with a slur. “It’s kind of relaxed.”
“Shut up, Bryan,” Jack told him. “The sheriff hears you and you’ll be starin’ at the sky seeing nothing.”
The men all looked at her with glazed eyes. Obviously, they were well into the liquor. Maybe she should ask her more serious questions earlier in the evening, before they were drunkern’ than a fiddler’s clerk.
“Just wondering. My last town was as wild as a corn-crib rat. I was hoping for a little reprieve from the craziness.”
One man laughed. “Right now, there are probably ten men in this room wanted by the law. You’ve come to about the wildest town in west Texas. This isn’t a quiet town by any means.”
That was obvious with most of the businesses in town catering to a man’s wilder side and filled with women of ill-repute. And Mrs. Hutchins owned many of them.
“Well, gentleman, even ladies need a place to hang low for a while.”
Jack grinned at her. “Some wife chasing you for looking twice at her man?”
Ruby laughed. “Not hardly. Let’s just say, my man and I had to separate to keep the law from connecting us.” So, it was a lie. She had no man, not really. Sure, she and Deke were working together to find Rivera, but he wasn’t her man. He was married, and she wasn’t going to be the woman who came between him and his wife. No matter how much she enjoyed Deke, she wasn’t stealing another woman’s man.
A drunken cowboy sitting at her table leaned forward, his head swaying from the effects of the liquor. “You ain’t Belle Starr, are you?”
Ruby felt the urge to create some suspense about her identity. She bent low and whispered, “Shh…don’t say that name very loud.”
“Oh, my gosh, it’s her,” he said loud enough to draw attention, yet barely sober enough to keep his head from slamming into the table.
“Now, I didn’t say I was Belle Starr, did I?” she said, knowing that probably someone in town had seen the woman’s poster, and they didn’t look a bit alike.
“No, but you’re pretty enough that you could be her.”
“Thank you,” she said and smiled around the table at the gentlemen, working to charm them out of their money and information. “Who hasn’t anted up?”
With a drunken glare, the straggler at the end of the table, the one she had to watch, pushed his coin into the pile of bets.
After two hours, Mrs. Hutchins came over and tapped her on the shoulder. “After the next hand, meet me in the office behind the bar. We have things to discuss.”
A flurry of butterflies invaded Ruby’s stomach, and she cringed inside. Now she’d learn if she’d successfully conned everyone into believing she’d been a dealer before tonight. If not, she could find herself with a madam threatening to run her out of town before she’d collected her bounty.
At the end of that hand, she looked at her patrons. “Well, gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure serving you tonight. I’m taking a break, and George is going to take over dealing the cards. I hope you all had a good time.”
“Ruby,” one of the men slurred her name, “will you marry me?”
She laughed and clucked him under the chin with her fingers. “Why, thank you for the kind offer, but I’m not available.”
“You married?” one of the other men asked.
“No, but I’m just not the marrying kind of woman. Excuse me, gentlemen.” Picking up her skirt, she strolled toward the office and the waiting Mrs. Hutchins. She passed Deke and didn’t even give him the time of day, though his fingers reached out and brushed her hand. A spiral of warmth wound its way through her, but she continued walking.
The man was married. He was strictly off limits, and no matter what, her body needed to forget how he made her feel. He had a wife waiting for him at home. And she had a bounty to catch.
Rounding the bar, she went into the office. Mrs. Hutchins sat waiting. “Sit down, Ruby.”
At first Ruby felt nervous as the woman stared at her like she was suspicious. She leaned back in her chair. “You’ve done well. You’re hired. Be here every day by eight in the evening and plan on staying until at least three am.”
Ruby wanted to release a sigh of relief, but she held it back, not wanting the woman to see she’d been nervous. This woman was sharper than a nail, and Ruby didn’t think she missed much that went on in her business. Tonight, Ruby had watched her handling the bartender, while she paraded the girls out like property to be chosen from. The madam was a shrewd manager; Ruby would do well to keep her emotions hidden and her eyes open.
“Thank you for the job. I hope I don’t disappoint.”
“I have confidence you’
ll be very good. And you’re going to distract these men so much they’ll be losing their money all the time, unless of course you would consider working upstairs. I know we’d both make a lot of money if you were one of my girls,” the woman said, a smile on her face.
“No, thank you.”
“You get ten percent of all your earnings,” she said with a smile, like it was going to be a huge amount of money to deal cards.
The woman was trying to get her for as cheap as possible. While Ruby hoped she’d never collect a dime of her wages, she didn’t like the idea of being taken. “No, I get twenty percent,” she said.
The woman smiled and shook her head. “The most I can offer you is fifteen percent of all your earnings.”
“That’s better,” Ruby said and stood.
“Of course, I’m going to charge you for the use of the clothes.”
How did her whores ever get out of this business if the madam charged them for every little thing, eating up most of their wage? A shudder rippled through Ruby at the thought of being trapped in this life. She couldn’t wait to catch Rivera and leave the dust of this town behind.
“I’d be shocked if you didn’t.”
“And if you want, I’ll offer you room and board.”
Oh no, that was a trap she wasn’t getting caught in. She’d continue staying at the hotel. “No, I think I’ll stay where I’m at.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” The madam stood and gave Ruby a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Get busy and earn the house some money. Go help those poor men lose their coins. Do whatever it takes.”
Though she would help the house win, she wasn’t about to cheat, no matter what the crooked woman wanted. Cheating was the way to find herself being chased out of town by the men she’d gouged.
“I’ll do my best,” Ruby said and walked out the door. She went back to her table, and as she passed Deke, she winked at him.
He narrowed his eyes at her and frowned. She put a little extra twitch in her behind as she passed him, making the man suffer a little as he watched her flirt outrageously with the men at her table. After all, he’d rejected her and then gone home and gotten married.
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